At least one post each workday offering the perspective of a simple liberal working man.

Thursday, September 20, 2007

Friks Take On

With this blogs new look and title, I've decided to bring back Friks take on. Friks take on is my take on the headlines of the day.

First is my take on Representative Peter King's statement that "Unfortunately we have too many mosques in this country". Ask me which I feel more threatened by. Mosques or right wing police statists? You probably know the answer. My response to King is that unfortunately we have too many hate filled Republican koolaid drinking administration toadies who are trying to ruin the America I grew up in. The America which used to stand for religious tolerance, personal freedom, humane treatment of prisoners and justice for all. The main difference between my take and King's is that he wants to sic the police on the Mosques... where as I think King should be allowed to continue being a right wing hate monger. We can combat him by pointing out precisely what he is, without the police getting involved.

Next, my take on President Bush's statement that there is no democracy in Iraq because Saddam "killed all the Mandelas". I wonder if the President would be satisfied if Iraq had a George Washington? You've heard all about that George I'll bet. The founding father of democracy in America, the first President and widely accepted as one of the best President's in American history. That guy. Well it turns out that the neocons who got us into the Iraq quagmire used to claim that Ahmad Chalabi was the George Washington of Iraq. Evidently Iraqs George Washington has not been able to solve the Iraq mess, but Nelson Mandela could... or something like that. I say lets call George Bush the Nero of Iraq. Actually, by the time all of this is done, the most incompetent and deadly leaders on the world stage will be labled the George Bush of their respective nations.

Are you still reading this?! Fine. Here's my take on the President grading himself with an A for "keeping taxes low, and being fiscally responsible with the people's money." That statement should be all the proof anyone needs that this President is positively delusional.

Finally my take on the President of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad being prohibited from visiting ground zero. I'm gonna be the sore thumb on this one, but let me stick out a little from the rest of the herd, all of whom have expressed shock, bewilderment and dismay that Ahmadinejad would even contemplating visiting this hallowed ground. Al Qaeda is not and never has been affiliated with Iran. In fact Iran is largely Shiite and Al Qaeda is exclusively Sunni. Al Qaeda in Iraq fomented civil war by attacking the Shiites affiliated with Iran. Prior to the American overthrow of the Taliban there was nearly open warfare between Teheran and Kabul because Iranian diplomats were blatantly massacred by the Taliban. Iran did not attack us on 9/11, has been on the opposite side of Al Qaeda in the Sunni/Shiite civil war, and now their President would like to make a gesture of respect. I say let him. It's not like having Osama Bin Laden visit, (and for all the administration knows, Osama just might have actually) even if some of the louder and more obnoxious noisemakers on the right want to make it seem so.

With all the ruckus over the request of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's request to visit “Ground Zero” during his visit to New York to lay a wreath [1], it is somewhat worth remembering how Iran responded to the 9/11 attacks in 2001.

Knowing how short American memories are and knowing how many Americans share President Bush’s habit of conflating all U.S. opponents and enemies into some sort of utterly fictional “united front,” like the now famous “Axis of Evil” (none of whom had anything whatsoever to do with the 9/11 attacks); I began preparing in the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 attacks. It was fully predictable that there would be an Islamaphobic backlash in the wake of the 9/11 attacks and that people with a vested interest in promoting anti-Muslim hatred would later try to equate the entire Islamic world with the attacks in New York and Washington DC. So, beginning on September 12, 2001, I began compiling the actual responses to the attacks by all the countries of the world with a Muslim majority regardless of their political standing or relationship with the United States. Visiting and saving snippets from official government outlets for these states (embassy websites, Ministries of Foreign Affairs, &c.) as well as searching the media for relevant articles discussing the reactions of these states, I saved all this data for the fifty-two states in question and put it online in the “International Islamic Response” website. After several moves to different hosts, I kept all this data and it can now be found online at: http://iir.internetactivist.org/

So what was Iran’s reaction to the 9/11 attacks?

"On behalf of the Iranian government and the nation, I condemn the hijacking attempts and terrorist attacks on public centers in American cities which have killed a large number of innocent people," President Khatami said in reaction to the worst attack on American soil since Pearl Harbor. ... "My deep sympathy goes out to the American nation, particularly those who have suffered from the attacks and also the families of the victims," he said, noting, "terrorism is doomed and the international community should stem it and take effective measures in a bid to eradicate it." Khatami added that the Islamic Republic of Iran is treading a road to uproot terrorism and to this end, he noted, it will spare no efforts.

All of this was saved in the immediate aftermath of 9/11 at http://iir.internetactivist.org/020.html though of course many of the links are no longer valid, being six years old.

The point was – and remains – to show that contrary to whatever the Islamaphobic hate-mongers might say today, the vast majority of the Islamic world, even including states that the US has had difficult relations with, were sympathetic and supportive in the wake of the 9/11 attacks. The whole supposition that there should be any problem with President Ahmadinejad laying a wreath at “Ground Zero” is just a statement of American ignorance, bigotry, and hated completely unjustified by anything Iran has done.

Anyway, to learn more about the response of the world’s majority Muslim countries in the immediate aftermath of 9/11, visit the International Islamic Response website at: http://iir.internetactivist.org/ Just click on any of the countries listed on the left to see how they responded. Just to save you some time, the ONLY majority Muslim states that were not sympathetic was Iraq (at the time under Saddam Hussein and suffering from US imposed sanctions that resulted in the death of over a million Iraqis [2]) and Afghanistan (then under the Taliban).

About Me

Bhfrik stands for bald headed freak. I am a proud liberal, married to a staunch libertarian conservative. We have two cats, Xiahou Meow and Rustee, who rule our household with velvet paws. You can email me @ bhfrik At Gmail dot com.